On October 12, 2008, three days before the final presidential debate, Obama met residents in Wurzelbacher’s Ohio neighborhood. … As ABC News cameraman Scott Shulman recorded the conversation, Wurzelbacher suggested that Obama’s tax plan would be at odds with “the American dream.” Wurzelbacher said, “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year. Your new tax plan’s going to tax me more, isn’t it?”

Obama responded with an explanation of how his tax plan would affect a small business in this bracket…. “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too… and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

It turns out one of Joe’s book suggestions is:

The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises. The book is a 1912 study of monetary theory. It brought monetary theory into the mainstream of economic analysis. It is important reading for these troubled times.

Joe the Plumber has read Mises!

Just think: one plumber who has read Mises rocked the Obama campaign for days. If one educated American can have such an effect, imagine what would happen if just 5% of Americans read good economics and good philosophy. The welfare state would be seriously challenged. It might even be over.

Now we see why our public education system fails. They can’t afford to educate the people. If they did, they’d be teaching themselves out of a job.

One Comment so far ↓

The phrase “all you have to do to save the world is think” is true. Good philosophy, economics and science. As you say, if even a lesser percentage of people got into these, the world would change drastically, for the better.

“They can’t afford to educate the people. If they did, they’d be teaching themselves out of a job.”

They need you to need them. They’ll use guns to make you need them if they have to. There’s only two ways of dealing with people – reason and force – and we know which one they aren’t using.

National Security Workforce to Address ‘Intersectionality’: do you ever get the sense that you’re in a waking nightmare? Money quote from the memo: “Our greatest asset in protecting the homeland and advancing our interests abroad is the talent and diversity of our national security workforce.”

Last Week Tonight on Donald Trump: bit long, but great takedown of the Trump mythos. In a more rational political environment, this would have killed his presidential campaign. I’m not sure it’ll make any difference.

A Responsibility I Take Seriously: nominee must be “without any particular ideology or agenda” and have “a keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook.” I sure hope the Republicans can hold the line on his nominations.

Trigger Warnings in Annapolis: I’m not sure why I expected the service academies to be bastions of academic freedom, but I did. It’s much worse than the universities since they’re far more hierarchical.

Announcing the Twitter Trust & Safety Council: this is within their rights, of course. Given the leftist leanings of the company and its assembled Council of Goodspeech, I suspect that some groups will get a pass and some will face suppression. Chilling at any rate.